This is the 10th year of the motorcycle rally, which even when
cancelled last year, has made its existence felt every year since a
few bikers decided to organize it to commemorate Hollister’s
contribution to the creation of the biker lifestyle.
This is the 10th year of the motorcycle rally, which even when cancelled last year, has made its existence felt every year since a few bikers decided to organize it to commemorate Hollister’s contribution to the creation of the biker lifestyle.
This year, for the first time, it’s being organized by a professional, experienced promotion company, with the evident cooperation of the city authorities and city and county law enforcement.
To those of us who aren’t bikers or businesses standing to profit from the bikers, it’s a pain in the neck about on a par with trying to get out of a crowded stadium while boom-boxes blare around you: inconvenient and noisy but temporary.
There is, however, something I will always like about the rally, even as it persists into the future as an ever-slicker commercial venture.
That is that the rally was first conceived and implemented by a bunch of independent people who didn’t know what they were doing, and went ahead anyway.
I was involved in some of the early meetings, representing the Chamber of Commerce. What painful meetings they were. No agenda, no timeline, no real rules of order. People rambled, interrupted, got off the topic and repeated themselves. They were too long and extremely boring, and I didn’t want to be there.
Yet despite all the confusion and amateurish meeting skills, decisions were made and plans started to come together.
The City Council at the time kept telling us we couldn’t do it and shouldn’t do it, and tried to stop the event from happening. I can’t remember if any contributions were made to local charities the first year or not. The law enforcement expense after the fact was higher than expected and left the Independence Rally Committee in the hole.
Somehow, however, the Rally kept chugging along year after year, putting Hollister on the map, drawing the attention of weekend warriors from Silicon Valley and outlaw bikers from elsewhere in the state. There were changes of management, disputes over money, and last year the cancellation, and yet the Rally is still with us.
In this month when we celebrate the independence of our nation and the freedoms that we enjoy, I enjoy remembering how the initiators of the rally exercised their own independence and entrepreneurial spirit to create something that hadn’t existed before, or at least not for fifty years.
On a grander scale, nothing like our country had ever existed before. No group of citizens had ever told their sovereign (who ruled by divine right, in their minds) that he didn’t rule them any more.
They ignored all the reasons why it couldn’t be done and did it anyway, in what was half a grand political gesture and half a harebrained scheme.
So I propose a toast to entrepreneurial and political daredevils, past present and future; salute your daring, and praise your successes.
